Nigerian car thief turns into sheep

We're not quite sure what to make of this report in Nigeria's Vanguard, but it appears that police in Ilorin, Kwara State, are holding in custody a chap who tried to steal a Mazda, transformed himself into a sheep and was seized by vigilantes in a swift ovine suppression operation.

The paper sort of explains that the head of the anti-sheep thief mob, one Prince Omoniyi Nasirudeen, stated for the record there were in fact two ne'er-do-wells and that when he and his team "beamed torchlight on them with the intention of apprehending them they ran away and they were vigorously chased until one of them disappeared while the second turned to sheep".

The Vanguard elaborates: "The vigilante added that the suspect turned to human being almost immediately and was still running until he was pursued to a corner where he quickly put his back behind the wall with one of the legs and turn to the sheep which was quickly grabbed.

"He said further that the entire residents were immediately alerted to come and see what happened and that one elderly woman among the crowd called the sheep Saliu and later went away.

"When asked whether he can still identify the elderly woman and why she was not arrested based on the revelation, he said he can't identify the woman and that she was not arrested because there was no clear link between her and the suspects."

The local commissioner of police, Mr Donald Iroham, is apparently having none of it. While the sheep was still in custody, the commish described the affair as "as an embarrassment to the police authorities because it's not possible for such incident to happen in this twenty fourth century".*

He insisted "it is not possible for a man to turn to a sheep, it is not scientific, it's not possible, it should be discarded, we are not happy about it at all".

The state governor, Alh Mas’ud Adebimpe, agreed, and issued a statement which read: "Intelligent [sic] reports reaching the State Governor, Dr Bukola Saraki as the Chief Security Officer of the State has no confirmatory evidence of such occurrence.

"There is no iota of truth in the alleged rumour as officers of the State Police Command are already investigating the matter."

Just so you know, police earlier this week said that if no one claimed the sheep, it would be sold. Its current status/species is unknown. ®

Bootnote

*Well, while we agree that such a thing is scientifically impossible right now, we have no doubt that by the 24th century sheep-shifting technology will be widely available.